How to Get to Strange House Black 2
Adrian Sas/The Lewis Latimer House Museum
As design lovers, we know there is often no better way to learn about someone than to take a look inside their home. That's why historic house museums are so valuable—they provide the most personal window into the lives of historic figures, making the stories in history books personal and tangible. As protests stemming from the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and more spread across the country, now (and always, going forward!) is a great time to reflect on the lives and accomplishments of outstanding figures in Black history. Below are eight historic house museums that were once home to Black poets, doctors, inventors, musicians, educators, civil rights activists, abolitionists, philanthropists, and more. The best part? You can donate to many of them via their websites. Learn more about the prominent people who once called these places home below, and schedule a visit once the sites are open.
1 The Coltrane Home, Dix Hills, NY
Jazz icon John Coltrane called the Long Island hamlet of Dix Hills home from 1964 until his death in 1967. This house, which is now a museum and learning and research center, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Coltrane lived here with his wife, Alice, a fellow jazz musician and composer, and their four children. John and Alice Coltrane composed a combined total of six albums in this home, including John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Alice Coltrane's debut solo album, Monastic Trio, followed by four other albums of hers.
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2 The Anne Spencer House & Garden Museum, Lynchburg, VA
Anne Spencer was a true [Harlem] Renaissance woman —she was a poet, a civil rights activist, a teacher, a librarian, and a gardener. She and her husband raised their family at their Lynchburg, Virginia, home, where they lived for the remainder of their lives, beginning in 1901. Spencer, along with her husband, Edward, and writer and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson, founded the Lynchburg Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Spencers hosted notable figures including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., W. E. B. Du Bois, George Washington Carver, and Thurgood Marshall, amongst others, at this house.
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3 Lewis Latimer House Museum, Flushing, NY
Chances are, you're currently using or just recently used something that inventor Lewis Latimer helped create: The telephone and the lightbulb are among his legacies. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell hired Latimer, a draftsman, to create the drawings needed for a patent for Bell's telephone. A few years later, Latimer was part of Edison's Pioneers, Thomas Edison's team of researchers. Latimer's former home in Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens, New York, is a Queen Anne–style house that was built from 1887 to 1889. It was where Latimer lived from 1903 until his passing 25 years later, in 1928, and it stayed in his family until 1963. To avoid demolition, in 1988, this historic house was transported from Holly Avenue to its current location of 34-41 137th Street.
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4 Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Washington, D.C.
Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery, went on to become one of the most influential and important figures in the fight against slavery, and his 1845 book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, became a bestseller. In this memoir and treatise, Douglass used both his own voice and the voices of other enslaved people to share their firsthand accounts of slavery in order to inform people of the struggles they experienced, with the goal of abolishing slavery. Cedar Hill, Douglass' former home in Washington, D.C., is now a National Historic Site. After Douglass' 1876 speech at the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, President Lincoln's widow, Mary Lincoln, gifted Douglass with a walking stick that was Lincoln's favorite, to show her admiration for Douglass. This item is currently located at Cedar Hill.
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5 Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta, GA
The Hammonds House, a Victorian structure built in approximately 1857, was the home of Dr. Otis Thrash Hammonds, who was an anesthesiologist and a patron of the arts who lived in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Hammonds amassed a collection of more than 250 works of art, including creations by young artists and artist groups who were struggling to support themselves. As the Chairman of the Board of the Neighborhood Arts Center, a member of the Board of Trustees of the High Museum of Art, and a member of various Atlanta and New York City museums, Dr. Hammonds was constantly supporting artists and their art. Today, the Hammonds House Museum has a permanent collection of over 450 works of art, created by American, African, and Caribbean artists.
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6 Louis Armstrong House Museum, Corona, NY
As both a New York City Landmark and a National Historic Landmark, the Louis Armstrong House Museum continues to honor the legacy and history of iconic trumpeter Louis Armstrong, who lived here with his wife, Lucille Wilson, for almost 30 years. In addition to a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a remarkable career as a trumpeter, vocalist, and composer, Louis Armstrong was also an established actor, as seen in films like High Society (alongside Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby) and Hello, Dolly!, starring Barbra Streisand. The Louis Armstrong House Museum hosts its own concerts, educational programs, and has an archive of writings, recordings, books, and memorabilia that are available to the public to use for research.
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7 Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site, Washington, D.C.
Mary McLeod Bethune made many major contributions during her lifetime, and held a great deal of important titles, including the head of the National Association for Colored Women and the National Youth Administration's Negro Division, a national advisor to president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a creator of the Federal Council on Negro Affairs (also called the Black Cabinet), and the founder of a private school that was solely for African-American students, located in Daytona Beach, Florida. The Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site includes a Victorian-era townhouse with three floors, and a carriage house with two floors. Members of the National Council of Negro Women lived on the first and second floors of the townhouse, while Bethune lived on the third.
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8 Old Stone House Museum, Brownington, VT
The Old Stone House Museum is the former home of Alexander Twilight, who is believed to be the first African-American person to receive a degree from a college or university in the U.S.A.. He attended and graduated from Middlebury College in 1823. Twilight's parents, Ichabod and Mary Twilight, were the first African-Americans to settle in the town of Corinth, Vermont. This home has been a museum for 95 years, since 1925, and it consists of 22 rooms of exhibits across four floors. Twilight was also the first African-American person to serve as a state legislator, in addition to being a minister at the Brownington Congregational Church and a principal at the Orleans County Grammar School. This former home has a unique design feature—its exterior is made of locally-sourced granite, hence the name Old Stone House Museum.
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9 Bonus: Nina Simone House, Tryon, North Carolina
Though it's not a house museum, this unassuming home in North Carolina may one day be: For years, it sat unnoticed, with even locals not knowing that it was the birthplace of Eunice Kathleen Waymon, the singer who would go on to be known as Nina Simone. In 2006, when the property went on the market, it was bought by a group of African American artists with the goal of turning it into an arts space. The group is now working with the National Trust to restore the house.
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Mary Elizabeth Andriotis Associate Editor Mary Elizabeth Andriotis is House Beautiful's Associate Editor, where she covers historic homes, entertainment, culture, and design.
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How to Get to Strange House Black 2
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